How to Get the Largest Home Buyers Commission Rebate
The simplest and easiest way to maximize your home buyer commission rebate is to contact us at Unlocked.
What is a home buyers commission rebate?
When you buy a home, your real estate agent is paid a commission, generally 2.5% - 3.0% of the price of your home. For a typical $2MM Bay Area single family home, the commission would be $50,000. Nice work if you can get it!
Agents can elect to rebate some of their commission back to their client, the buyer. Doing so allows home buyers to re-coup some of the purchase price of their home. Given the escalating costs of home prices in the Bay Area, savvy homebuyers are looking for any financial edge to make home ownership more affordable.
Are rebates legal in California?
Yes! Home rebates are legal, and are considered 'pro-consumer'. Indeed, the U.S. Department of Justice has said that "Rebates make home buying less expensive", that rebates "[lead] to lower prices to consumers" and has sued a number of states that have tried to ban buyer commission rebates.
Can I ask my existing real estate agent for a rebate, and are rebate amounts negotiable?
Absolutely! You should ask your real estate agent for a home buyer rebate. If you like working with your existing real estate agent, you should enquire whether they are willing to offer you, or match, a homebuying rebate. After all, it is your money that is ultimately paying their commission.
The standard commission rate in the Bay Area is 2.5%. Based on your homebuying budget, you can calculate how much your real estate agent is making from your transaction. So, for example, if you are looking to buy a $1.6MM home, your agent's commission is $40,000.
A lot of Bay Area homebuyers are leading a 'self-directed home search', whereby they are using sites like Redfin and Zillow to track the market, and in the interest of efficiency and flexibility, attend open houses by themselves. If the buyer is doing more of the work themselves, it stands to reason that they shouldn't have to pay as much to their agent, and should be able tore-coup some of their purchase price as a home buyer's commission rebate.
How do I get the largest home buyer rebate?
The simplest and easiest way to maximize your home buyer commission rebate is to contact us at Unlocked. We offer our clients a 1% commission rebate. This is the largest home buyer commission rebate in the Bay Area (that we're aware of)!
For a $2.5MM home, we would rebate you $25,500. That is a substantial amount of money that could be used for:
- Renovations and upgrades
- New furniture, appliances or finishing
- Paying down your mortgage
Got Questions?
We've Got Answers
No question is too big or too small. Find answers to everything you've been wondering about Unlocked.
We cover the entire Bay Area. We've helped clients buy homes in San Francisco, North Bay, East Bay and South Bay. We also cover LA and San Diego in Southern California.
We provide all of the services of a traditional real estate agent, with better data-driven tools, increased transparency and more responsive customer service. We can help with as little or as much of the home-buying process as you require. Some clients come to us with a home already found and a price in mind, and need assistance with assessing the home and executing the transaction. Others are still figuring out their budget, what they're looking for, and advice on where to focus their search. Wherever you are in your home buying journey, we’re here to seamlessly guide you through your home buying process - finding the right home, valuing it, understanding the disclosures, submitting a competitive offer, and closing the transaction. We're with you from start to finish.
Yes. Unlocked is a fully-licensed California brokerage (CalDRE #02060530) and all of our agents are fully-licensed California sales agents and members of the California Association of Realtors (TM) and the National Association of Realtors (TM).
With Unlocked, you’ll be working with one of our fully-licensed real estate agents to get all of the services provided by a traditional real estate agent, with better data-driven tools, increased transparency and more responsive customer service. So in many respects, your buying experience will be the same as working with a traditional real estate agent - only better!
In terms of how we’re different, firstly, we offer 1% cash back. This is the largest buyer’s rebate in California (that we know about)! That is tens of thousands of dollars that you can put that towards buying new furniture, renovating your kitchen and bathrooms or throwing that all important housewarming party (or more responsible uses like paying down your mortgage).
Secondly, our backgrounds are different than traditional real estate agents. We are a Stanford MBA and a Yale Law JD, who have also worked at some of the top management consulting, law and private equity firms (Bain & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Wachtell and Bain Capital). We leverage our data-driven, customer-oriented experiences to deliver a more insightful, analytical and responsive home buying experience.
Thirdly, Unlocked has built custom analytical tools to bring data, insight and transparency to the key buying decision points and streamlined the buying process. For every home you’re interested in, we provide our Custom Valuation Report, an easy-to-interpret spreadsheet of recent comparable transactions, competing listings and third-party valuations, as well as our Disclosure Review Summary, a comprehensive summary of the 200+ pages of disclosures.
All-in-all, we’ve designed the buying experience that we would have wanted when we bought our homes, and we’re sure you’ll love it, just like our current and past clients have (check out our Yelp reviews).
One of our licensed real estate agents personally leads each transaction and will be your day-to-day point of contact throughout your home buying journey. We work closely as a team, and are able to jump in for each other if and when you have a time-sensitive request.